Musopen raises cash to open-source classical recordings

A non-profit library of copyright-free music called Musopenhas launched a fundraising drive with the aim of getting a world-class orchestra to record Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky symphonies, and then release the rights to those recordings into the public domain.

The copyright of a composition is entirely independent of the copyright of the recording of that composition. While this allows the original writer of a song that's covered by a more famous band to get paid, one side-effect is that you can end up with centuries-old public domain music still locked away because the recording of that music (from a modern orchestra) is under copyright.

Musopen explains: "Right now, if you were to buy a CD of Beethoven's 9th symphony, you would not be legally allowed to do anything but listen to it. You wouldn't be able to share it, upload it, or use it as a soundtrack to your indie film-- yet Beethoven has been dead for 183 years and his music is no longer copyrighted. There is a lifetime of music out there, legally in the public domain, but it has yet to be recorded and released to the public."

Musopen wants to get hold of a recording to issue to the public, but internationally-renowned orchestras don't come cheap, so it's trying to raise around $11,000 (about £7,100) to fund the recording process. Once it's complete, the recordings will be released under a public domain license. Musopen has undertaken a similar project before, raising the funds to release Beethoven's piano sonatas without copyright on its own website.

The group has started a Kickstarter page to raise the funds, which at the time of writing is up to about $4,800 (about £3,100) from 57 backers. The $11,000 total is enough to record and release the rights to all of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius' symphonies, and any extra cash will be used on other projects, like Mozart's violin sonatas, or Chopin's nocturnes. Any contributors get to vote on what the money will be used for.

The deadline for the fundraising is 14 September, and if the target isn't reached by that point then everyone gets their money back. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said: "The Musopen campaign presents a creative solution that could help ensure that such essential music is preserved and shared for generations to come."

If you'd like to contribute to the project, head on over to the Kickstarter page and pledge some cash. The minimum amount is just $2 (£1.30).

Beethoven would have been proud, too. He once said: "There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works and from which he could carry away whatever he needed."